


now we're stuck in the storm (we were born to ignore)

by ehj



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Presidential Alert: The Girls are Fighting, as our lord and savior britney would say, but not for long, oops i did it again, spoilers for Crisis on Infinite Earths, what would have happened if Lena were a paragon LIKE WE DESERVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21765184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehj/pseuds/ehj
Summary: in which lena is RIGHTFULLY the paragon of humanity, which leads to some super healthy dynamics between her, lex, and kara.or: sometimes it takes destroying the whole multiverse to confess your love to your (ex) best friend.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 69
Kudos: 1430





	now we're stuck in the storm (we were born to ignore)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post from my hell brain: 
> 
> like this whole crossover is starting to revolve around lex and there’s no lena y’all are so fuckin DUMB DKFJHDJSJSKSK like lex kara and lena all stuck in the vanishing point CAN YOU IMAGINE
> 
> sara: well this must be fun for you— stuck outside space and time with your megalomaniac brother and your ex  
> lena: she’s not my ex  
> lex: YOU FUCKED SUPERGIRL?
> 
> title from the bleachers song "don't take the money," which has GIANT supercorp energy please listen to it.

Kara’s heard songs about this on Earth-38.

About it being the end of the world—and how it feels fine.

 _This?_ This does not feel fine. And Kara guesses that the writers of these songs had little practical experience with watching not one, but dozens of worlds end.

So when Kara Zor-El finds herself as one of seven left in the entire multiverse, while she holds her (kind of?) cousin as his body suddenly burns up with streaks of light bursting forth into the room, disintegrating like the earths did, and she finds Lex Luthor standing in his place, Kara wonders if this is it.

If he’ll whip out some Kryptonite and kill Kara first, just get this all over with.

And Kara would never admit it, but she’s resigned to it.

Maybe she’s done all she can do, and this is really the end.

“Lex, what did you do?”

Kara tries to be angry, but it comes out weaker than she wants. Like she’s not even surprised that things would take such a turn.

Such a turn that she’s now stuck outside of space and time with both of the Luthor children.

She’s barely had time to react to the fact that Lena is one of the seven paragons—the paragon of humanity.

The shining example of all the good in the human world. The reminder of what superheroes keep fighting for.

And Rao, she really is. She still is.

Lena has barely looked in Kara’s direction in the short time they’ve been stuck together, with the other paragons having gone to recruit her (“it’s for the best that I don’t,” was the only explanation Kara gave when Iris suggested Kara would be best suited for the task, given her and Lena’s friendship). The most Lena has acknowledged her so far is when she gave a cursory glance of the other six paragons and sighed when her eyes passed over Kara’s.

Like she was resigned to it.

Like she’d expected such a turn.

Kara doesn’t even hear Lex’s explanation for how he ended up in Kal’s place. All she can do is sneak a glance over to Lena, who is standing with her fists clenched, jaw dropped, and the same look on her face she had when Kara uttered the words “I’m Supergirl” at the Pulitzer ceremony.

Kara can hear her whisper a soft “How?” to herself, and Kara knows Lena well enough to see the subtle way she draws in on herself, how she looks down at the ground and her shoulders hunch up. Kara knows Lena is beating herself up on the inside, probably asking herself how this was possible, what had she done wrong.

All Kara wants to do is reach out and hold her. Seeing Lena hurt—by Kara herself but _especially_ by someone else, especially by _Lex_ —draws a primal response out of her every time.

It forces a renewed anger to burst forth in Kara, a second wind.

And maybe that’s why Lena is the paragon of humanity.

Because she’s reminding Kara to fight without even having to say it.

“Ironic that you came here disguised as the Paragon of Truth, you—"

Kara’s cut off by a familiar voice.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Kara.”

It stings. Lena always knows just where to strike to hurt just deep enough. Kara knows it’s all defense, it’s all out of her own pain that Kara brought upon her.

It doesn’t hurt any less.

“Hey, I really don’t think now is the time—"

Lena steps forward from her spot between Kate and Barry and turns to face Kara.

“I think now is a great time. You want to talk about truth? Let’s talk.”

Of course Kara wants to talk.

Of course Kara wants to figure this out.

But leave it to them to save this for the literal end of the world.

“Lena, please—"

“Do your friends here know the kind of person you really are?”

Lena’s voice is gravelly, pained, and Kate and Barry look at each other in fear and confusion as Lena steps further forward and toward Kara.

“That’s enough, Lena,” J’onn interrupts as Lena opens her mouth to say something else.

But there’s a determination in Lena’s eyes that Kara’s seen when she’s in the lab, on a business call, and is down a few points at Game Night.

She doesn’t stop.

Lena shoves right past Lex, who grunts as his sister knocks his shoulder with hers, and stands herself directly in front of Kara with her arms crossed.

It’s the closest Kara’s been to her in weeks, and she can’t breathe.

A short distance between them that used to feel so familiar, the arms length apart that Lena would be right before she’d reach her arms out to embrace Kara, feels foreign now. It feels disjointed and awkward, and Rao, if this is the end, this is not what Kara wants.

“Do they know the kind of liar you are, Kara? And you too, J’onn?”

Kara swallows the lump in her throat.

No, no one knows.

There’s not exactly time to explain these kinds of things to her friends when they usually only see each other in crisis situations.

Barry confirms as much when he asks, “What are you even talking about?”

Lena looks to him and quirks her eyebrow up in a way that usually makes Kara’s heart skip a beat. Right now, it makes her stomach drop.

“Oh, nothing. Just how these two supposed examples of hope and honor lied to me. I had to find out from Lex that Kara is Supergirl.”

Lex chuckles, and everyone in the room, who’ve been captivated by Lena’s coldness, turn their heads to remember the other Luthor in the room.

“Which I told you after you shot me in the chest, sister.”

Lena rolls her eyes while everyone’s heads whip back to Lena almost in unison.

Sara pulls a surprised face and breaks the icy silence that falls with, “Okay, what the _fuck_ is going on here?”

But Lex and Lena ignore her as they stare each other down.

“Listen to you. You’re more of a Luthor than I thought. So cold and calculated.”

It’s automatic for Kara. When she hears someone slander Lena Luthor, she has to react.

It’s instinctive.

It’s a reaction burned into her brain.

So despite where they’re at, Kara can’t help herself from stepping between Lena and Lex and nearly growling, “Lena is nothing like you.”

Lena places her hands on Kara’s shoulders and pushes her to the side. Kara goes easily because all she feels is Lena’s hands on her body. Lena’s hands that used to wrap around her shoulders and biceps with an affectionate squeeze after they’d pull away from a hug. Lena’s hands that have held Kara’s during deeply intense conversations about trust. Lena’s hands that distract Kara when she sees them tinkering with technology or typing furiously on her laptop, and Kara’s mind wanders to what else those hands could do.

Kara barely registers Lena’s, “Oh, would you stop it already, Kara?” as she pushes her aside.

Kara whirls around to face Lena.

“Well forgive me for defending you.”

The feel of Lena’s hands on Kara’s shoulders seems to be the match to the flame for both of them. It lights Kara’s senses on fire, makes her feel the white hot anger she’s been pressing down all day, if even for a moment.

And for Lena, it seems to keep the steady fire burning.

“I don’t need you to defend me. I already told you that you don’t get to say anything like that again.”

Kara barely has time to think of a response before Lex interrupts with another insidious laugh.

“Ah, the trouble in paradise continues, I see.”

Kara and Lena break their gaze with each other to turn toward Lex and shout at the same time.

“Shut up, Lex!”

Lena sighs heavily and turns away from Kara, stalking back to the other side of the room with a determined clip.

Kara sees her take a shaky breath out.

“Are those tears I see, little Lena?” Lex mocks.

Lena turns toward Lex with a burning hatred in her eyes that’s overcast with a tell-tale gloss and a quivering lip.

And again, Kara has to remind herself that she can’t reach out to hold Lena.

She watches as Lena turns away again and folds her arms over her chest once more, staring out a window.

“Wow. You really had it bad for the Kryptonian, didn’t you?”

Something snaps in Lena, because she’s turning back around and letting her arms uncross as she stomps toward Lex, almost running at him, muttering in a low but deadly voice that even makes Sara’s eyes widen, “I shot you once, and I will shoot you again—"

Barry races in front of her as Sara reaches out to hold Lena back, J’onn ready behind them for backup. “

“Hey!”

Barry takes a heavy breath out and gives everyone else in the room a chance to do the same, Lena’s lip still quivering as she clenches her jaw with her teeth bared at Lex.

Kara’s never seen her so broken.

“We are the last seven beings in the multiverse. And as much as all of you need to get some things sorted out, now is not the time for family therapy or—"

“Or fighting with your ex,” Sara adds, letting Lena’s arms go.

Lena narrows her eyes as she wrenches away from Sara and turns toward her, and Sara’s lips pull back in a smirk that tells Lena she’s baiting her.

“Kara is not my ex,” Lena mumbles.

Lena brushes off her arms where Sara held her and seems to make an extra effort to not look at or anywhere near Kara.

All Kara can do is mouth to Sara, “Why would you say that?” and watch with a dropped jaw as Sara just winks in response.

Is it really that obvious?

Kara’s eyes flit from Sara to Barry and back and forth again, only for Barry to clear his throat and look away.

Because… now is really not the time.

“Right. My point is, if we’re going to figure this out, and find a way to defeat the Anti-Monitor, we’re going to need to be a little more cohesive than this.”

“Barry’s right. We don’t have time for this right now,” Kate adds.

And that all sounds great to Kara. Really.

Save the multiverse. Get Earth-38 back. Maybe, at some point, get Lena back.

There’s just one problem that seems insurmountable right now.

“So I’m just supposed to be expected to work with Lex Luthor somehow?”

“Kara,” J’onn warns.

“Oh, you think I’m thrilled about that prospect?” Lena bites back, turning away from the window, tears in her eyes now gone and the fiery anger returned.

Lena stares Kara down.

Like she’s waiting for her to break. Like Lena’s waiting for her to give in and say, “You’re right, Lena. You’re the one who has it the worst out of all of us.”

And Kara is fucking _tired._

“Please,” J’onn pleads, but neither Kara nor Lena look at him.

“What would Alex want?”

Kara’s breath catches.

It’s a low blow.

But even Lena’s face sobers as he says it.

Neither really knows who looked away first.

It doesn’t really matter.

The air in the room is thick, rife with tension, when Sara claps her hands together and announces to the group, “Alright, Paragons. Let’s get started before everything is para-gone for good.”

She’s met with six sets of eyes giving her the same exhausted look.

She throws her hands in the air in defeat.

“Oh, come on, someone had to boost morale after that L Word reboot sneak peek.”

Lena chokes on air and falls into a coughing fit with Kate gently patting her back. Kara blushes a deep red and stumbles over her words.

Surely, she can’t be that obvious…

“I don’t—we’re not—we’ve never—”

Kara gives up when she realizes that the group is dispersing around the room and filing through different doors to explore the vessel that holds them.

“Okay…,” she mutters and follows Kate through a doorway.

Kate starts rifling through drawers to see what the room holds and throws over her shoulder, “So now I understand why your hatred for Lex Luthor is particularly strong.”

Kara remains quiet.

“Here I thought it was just about your cousin.”

 _It is_ , Kara wants to say.

But it’s not.

It never has been.

“Lena was my best friend, “Kara explains. “Until… everything that happened with Lex.”

Kate stops and turns toward Kara.

“We’ve barely spoken in weeks.”

“Kind of seems like she was a lot more than that to you.”

And Kara doesn’t really know where to go with that. Maybe under less dire circumstances, when the end of the worlds isn’t upon them, Kara would explain in great detail that she’s felt lucky just to orbit Lena for the past three years. That she never meant to fall in love with Lena, never expected it. Maybe she’d tell Kate about the irrational jealousy Kara felt early on when she’d met Lena’s ex, Jack, the sorrow she’d felt for Lena when he’d died but the sick, secret pride she’d felt knowing that Lena had chosen her over Jack, even if she didn’t realize Kara was Supergirl yet.

Maybe she’d tell Kate about how she felt sick to her stomach—a feeling usually foreign to her with her powers—every time she’d seen Lena with James. Maybe she’d tell Kate about the times Kara drank kombucha for Lena, and Lena would order a ridiculous amount of potstickers for her and Kara. Maybe, if they had time, Kara would tell her that realizing she was in love with Lena was as simple as waking up in the morning—that one day Kara looked at Lena just a little bit differently and never looked back.

But instead, Kara just sighs.

“It was never gonna happen, and it sure won’t now.”

Kate lets out a hum in response and lets that answer sit between them for a few long moments while Kara feels that uneasiness in her stomach rise again.

“So what if we die?”

“What? Why would you say that?”

Kate shrugs and leans back against the counter with a wry smile.

“Okay, I know you’re supposed to stand for hope, but what if we die? You want to go down never telling her?”

If this is the end, this isn’t what Kara wants at all.

If this is the end, Kara wants to tell her.

But they have a multiverse to save, and declaring her love to Lena is not on the agenda for this crisis.

“I just don’t think any good can come of it.”

Kate sighs again and shrugs.

“Suit yourself, but I think right now is the most down time we’re gonna have for awhile.”

Kate leaves the room, and Kara’s not quite sure where she goes, but she hears the sound of Barry’s laughter as the muffled sound of Lena’s voice carries through the halls. She can’t make out what she’s saying, but Kara can tell Lena is speaking with an animated tenor that Kara is all too familiar with.

Kara figures, at the very least, if everyone else is taking a break from saving the multiverse, then maybe she can afford a few moments alone.

So Kara wanders down a hallway, further away from the noise, and parks herself at a large window and stares out into a facsimile of outer space, knowing full well that they’re outside the confines of space and time. She knows that, for the time-being, they’re safe from the threats of the Anti-Monitor.

Kara wraps her cape around herself like a blanket and stares blankly out at the stars.

Her eyes start to dart around the whole scene, hopelessly wishing that an Earth, any Earth, will show up.

She thinks of Earth-38, blown away, blown to pieces. Everyone gone.

She thinks of Argo and clenches her jaw knowing that Clark and Lois made it out but not her mother— _why didn’t she go?_

Kara always thought she had more time. Would have more time to go see her mother, go take a trip up to Argo just to visit. More time to spend with Alex and watch her and Kelly fall deeper in love and hopefully, watch as Alex finally got the chance to start her family. More time to protect the people of National City. More time with her friends.

More time with Lena.

More time to save her and have Lena offer a begrudging thank you.

More time to find a way for them to work together.

More time to let her be angry and more time for them to find their way back to each other.

More time for Kara to tell her she’d fallen in love with her best friend and realized the whole thing felt inevitable all along.

The anger in Kara’s body has burned out. The match has flickered.

And she’s just tired and carrying the crumbling, sooty weight of the trauma she’s never let herself touch.

If this is the end, this isn’t what Kara wanted.

“I’m sorry.”

Kara freezes when she hears Lena’s voice, thinks at first that she must be hallucinating from fatigue because she didn’t even hear footsteps approaching.

But Kara slowly turns, still holding her cape around herself protectively.

“For your loss. Losses.”

Lena says it genuinely but doesn’t meet Kara’s eyes, her hands bridged together in front of her chest, guarded.

Kara nods in thank you even though she knows Lena won’t see and finds herself saying, “I can’t even let myself think they’re really gone, you know?”

It’s so easy with Lena—to slip into conversation and for Kara to say whatever is on her mind.

Lena looks up at this, and Kara sees her eyes filled with tears again.

“Yeah,” Lena whispers. “I kind of know what you mean.”

The last time they were alone together, really truly alone together, Lena had been the most vulnerable Kara’s ever seen her.

And for some reason, even now, she’s giving Kara that luxury, because Lena is boring into Kara’s gaze like she’s begging her to pick up on a deeper meaning.

Kara’s supposed to be hopeful but can’t quite bring herself to here.

The air feels heavy, and it all feels like too much. Kara’s so tired, and they shouldn’t be doing this. They need to focus on the multiverse, on saving people, not on fixing something that might not even be able to be saved—

“You should probably get back and help, Lena. I mean you saved Earth-38—"

“Didn’t matter in the end, did it?”

Kara isn’t surprised to hear it, to hear Lena keep beating herself up, even at the end of the world. Kara just shakes her head.

“We need you.”

Lena just nods and stares out the window, and Kara knows she doesn’t believe it.

“You go ahead and go back. I’ll just be a couple more minutes,” Kara adds.

She wants to be here with Lena. She wants to be selfish _just for once_ and let herself have just one moment of clarity with Lena.

But Kara needs Lena to want it, too.

“I think my brain just needs a couple more minutes to decompress, you know?”

So Lena doesn’t move, and she and Kara stand side-by-side in silence, staring out into darkness that’ll swallow them whole.

A few minutes (maybe seconds, maybe hours—Kara can’t really tell) later, Lena finally speaks.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you, Kara. It’s just—you and me _and Lex_ all in the same confined space and…paragons and the multiverse being destroyed…”

She shakes her head and, to Kara’s surprise, laughs.

“It’s just a lot for what I thought was going to be a normal Tuesday.”

Kara can’t help it.

She laughs too.

“I don’t even know what day it is anymore,” Kara adds, struggling to keep a smile off her face. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter when you’re outside space and time.”

Kara beams knowing that she’s the one who’s putting the smile on Lena’s face. It almost feels normal. It feels familiar, just out of reach, and Kara keeps grabbing for it.

If this is the end, Kara wants to feel the comfort that comes from the normalcy of making Lena Luthor laugh.

But Lena’s smile fades as she turns to face Kara fully.

“You’re supposed to be a symbol of hope. A reminder of why we all keep going, why we all keep fighting.”

She steps closer into Kara’s space, close enough that Kara can feel the ghosting of Lena’s breath on her lips as she sighs heavily.

“But all I see in front of me is a reminder of why we keep fighting each other.”

“I don’t want to fight, Lena.”

Lena smiles sadly, and Kara re-familiarizes herself with all the small details of Lena’s face that she’s taken for granted.

“I want to stay angry at you so badly,” Lena whispers.

Lena tears her eyes away from Kara, and Kara’s eyes follow along the sharp angle of Lena’s jawline.

If this is the end, Kara’s really not sure she can go without just _trying_ to kiss it.

“And then I think about how we are two of seven left in the entire multiverse. Hundreds of billions from across every Earth…anyone could have been here, and it’s still you and me.”

_It’s still you and me._

Kara’s stomach does a flip, tries not to let herself get her hopes up.

“I used to be a lot more willing to believe in fate and destiny and things happening for a reason. And the past couple years have really shaken that because so much of what has happened feels like it makes no sense at all.”

Kara wonders if she’s hearing what she wants to hear, if this is all a dream. She wonders how she ever let Lena stay away for this long.

“But here I am, completely unsure if there’s a way out of this, and I want to believe there’s a reason for it.”

Kara smiles.

“Maybe you should have been the Paragon of Hope, then,” she replies.

Lena looks down as she laughs, and then shyly back up at Kara.

“Oh, let’s not get carried away.”

But Kara means it. Kara wonders if Lena has been holding this hope within her the whole time, if she’s wanted Kara back just as much as Kara’s wanted her. If Lena is thinking that if she has to decide how she wants to spend the end of the world, she wants to spend it with Kara.

“No, seriously. I think you have more hope than I do right now.”

These moments with Lena are a reprieve, but Kara is still resigned to this being the end, to losing everything. This is just one moment with Lena. It could all go away without Kara telling her.

Or worse—Kara telling Lena how she feels and having it all blow up in her face.

“I watched my family get blown up—my Kryptonian family—twice. And then I watched Earth-38 and Earth-1 die along with almost everyone I love in it.”

To Kara’s surprise, Lena reaches out a tentative hand and places it on Kara’s shoulder, this time with intention to be gentle and comforting. Not aggressive. Not hurtful. Not a performance of hurt that’s a cry for help to get Kara to notice.

Just Lena and Kara and the way it’s always been.

“I mean, I’ve lost everything,” Kara continues.

Lena’s touch has Kara alight once again, this time rather than anger, with something resembling hope.

Kara reaches a hand up to cover the one on her shoulder and smiles sadly.

“I even lost you.”

She feels a gentle squeeze to her shoulder.

“Kara—"

“Hey, if this is the end, and there is a reason for all of this, why it’s you and I instead of Oliver or Alex or Brainy or Iris or Jefferson…”

Kara makes up her mind.

If this is the end, _she needs to tell her._

“I need you to know how much I loved you, Lena.”

The words feel like a release, like when Kryptonite stops flooding her system and she’s able to breathe again, like when she lets go of the weight of an airplane or a helicopter and pushes it to safety. It feels like a literal weight off her shoulders as the weight of Lena’s hand presses further down.

“Kara—"

“No, please. If I don’t say it now, I’ll either never get the chance to or won’t be brave enough.”

The tears in Lena’s eyes are back, and this time, she doesn’t turn away or stop them from falling.

“I loved you so much, Lena. I still do. I may have kept some really big things from you, but the way I feel about you has never been a lie. So maybe, if there is some twisted reason for all of this to happen, I’m at least gonna try and find meaning in it.”

The hand on Kara’s shoulder joins Lena’s other hand as they wrap around her neck.

Lena laughs through the tears as she says, “Well, I really wish we hadn’t had to break the whole multiverse to get here.”

 _Rao, me too,_ Kara thinks.

“I could never stop loving you, Kara. And I tried. I tried so hard to hate you and approach things like I had to live without you, and I don’t want to.”

Kara presses her forehead to Lena’s.

“If this is the end, I want to be with you,” Lena murmurs into the space between them.

And as Kara hears the words tumble out of Lena’s mouth and feels them in a breath on her lips and blurrily sees them in Lena’s eyes through her own tears, Kara lets herself hope.

“And what if it’s the beginning?” Kara asks.

When Lena presses her lips to Kara’s, urges her lips apart to slot their mouths together—

When Kara revels in the soft warmth of Lena’s mouth and feels Lena’s lips yield to Kara’s tongue pushing past, and Kara eventually decides there’s so much of Lena she needs to kiss and presses her lips across her cheek and over her jawline—

Lena pulls back with a groan from Kara, but Kara is immediately met with an adoring look from Lena.

Kara lets herself believe that this could be the beginning.

“Then I have hope that we’ll figure it out together.”

**Author's Note:**

> now that i've started writing for them, there is no end in sight, y'all. i have like ten more ideas and i HATE IT (but love it).


End file.
